Dear Mr. President: One glimpse of your nation

In this Saturday, May 19, 2012 file photo, Occupy Chicago protesters, some wearing masks, sit in the street outside Mayor Rahm Emaunel's house during a march and demonstration in Chicago, host of a NATO summit where delegations from about 60 countries will discuss the war in Afghanistan and European missile defense.

Associated Press

Summary

We hold one truth to be self-evident, Mr. President: Americans feel deeply uncertain about the state of the nation right now. Very few of us seem to know what the rules are anymore — or even where we are going.

“When we go around perpetuating those stereotypes, it furthers that sense that we're so polarized. When I don't think that we really are.”

Liz Owens Boltz, voter

Dear Mr. President:

There is a man in Jacksonville, Fla., named Bryan Stone. He is 60 years old and works at a company that helps people find better jobs. He describes himself as "more to the right than the left," though not all that far out from the middle. And he has something to say about the way America used to be that he wouldn't mind you hearing.

"Everybody knew what the rules were," he says. "That's not true anymore."

Hours from now, Mr. President, you take a brief oath and, after a bumpy and contentious first term, you begin your second. You know more about the nation you lead than do many of your 315 million employers. But the presidency, and the concentric circles of posturing that surround it, form a bubble that shields you from so much.

Here, then, is one snapshot — an interpretation of how it feels in America right now. It's broad-brush and subjective, as any snapshot of a nation so big and diverse must be. And how America feels is different, of course, from how America IS. But perceptions, as the bumps and bruises of your first term have shown, can become reality.

We hold one truth to be self-evident, Mr. President: Americans feel deeply uncertain about the state of the nation right now. Very few of us seem to know what the rules are anymore — or even where we are going. Just this past week, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll found that 57 percent of Americans polled think the country's on the wrong track. Not as bad as October 2011, when it was 74 percent. But not very optimistic, either.

The people are fragmented, consumed, distracted, sometimes paralyzed by choices. Look at the comments section below any major news story posted on the web and you'll see your countrymen denouncing each other in bulk. Is this the glorious mess of democracy or a sign of something uglier?

Last month after Newtown, for example, we wept in disbelief and pain for a few days and then many of us set to shouting. Regulate guns, insisted one side, and you'll stop children from dying. Take law-abiding citizens' guns away, insisted the other, and you place us in greater danger and violate one of the nation's most fundamental rights.

Simple, right? Just like these easy labels: Liberals are big-government-loving socialists who can't stop taxing and wasting. Conservatives are gun-loving, callous warmongers who don't care about the common people. Pathetic.

"When we go around perpetuating those stereotypes, it furthers that sense that we're so polarized. When I don't think that we really are," says one of your constituents, Liz Owens Boltz, a web content administrator in Sylvania, Ohio. She's an independent who has voted Republican in the past but voted for you.

This is part of the problem, Mr. President, the contradiction of our age. We are multitudes, yet we have built a story of clustering in two camps. You inherited deep divisions, and you say you are trying to make things better. But, to hear your adversaries tell it, you have made them worse. If only there were one clear answer flashing in neon above the highway. How American that would be. But there are many answers, and none. And we don't even seem to have the language to discuss them.

"I'm looking for a little more thoughtfulness and discussion and compromise and a little less knee-jerk political posturing," Boltz says. "We tend to treat our government and politics like we treat our bodies — we don't see things being a problem until it's an emergency. But preventative care and long-term solutions, it's a little less sexy. If we're all in this black/white, yes/no mindset, how do we make progress?"

Popular Comments

All in all, I am optimistic about our future. The biggest problem we have is
those who refuse to extend the same respect to a duly elected President of the
party other than their own, and who listen with rapture to hate radio and TV.
Their corrosive
More..

8:14 a.m. Jan. 20, 2013

Top comment

I M LDS 2

Provo, UT

Well that was a waste of my time.

7:15 a.m. Jan. 20, 2013

Top comment

one vote

Salt Lake City, UT

Yes a glimpse reveals not at meaningless symbolic war In Iraq, winding down the
other one, working on slowing gun violence, economy coming back after being
torched by banks and hedge funds.